#0 - Aug. 25, 2006, 5:25 p.m.
Despite the general opinion at this point, I don't believe Silithyst is a bad feature. In fact, after a few more hours spent in Silithus on patch night, I find that it compliments world PvE in Silithus very well.
The source of popular discontent is timing more than anything. Though the Cenarian Circle buff is nice despite the 30 minute duration, the system clearly compliments people engaging world PvE in Silithus the most - which is not exactly a hive of activity anymore. Granted, relatively speaking it's still one of the most active regions; it's just that it's not nearly as packed as it used to be. Furthermore, I believe many people are sick of Silithus now because it's synonymous with grinding. That's very telling in and of itself.
Had this feature been around when Cenarian Hold was first added, the Ahn'Qiraj war effort started, or after the Scarab gate opened, I think it would been welcomed warmly quite warmly by the community. However, since folks had big expectations for the World-PvP-Revival and Honor-Revamp patch, and many of them are done, bored, or sick with Silithus, it's no wonder that what is a minor feature has been met with hostility. A matter of timing more than quality.
Additionally, if Silithyst was better designed to compliment raiding Ahn'Qiraj, rather than those doing world PvE in Silithus, it would have a stronger presence in the current state of the game. However, it would be a waste of resources to change Silithyst since it truely is a nice little system.
It would be better to add a new system for raiders. For example, add a tower at the Scarab gate - the lore logic of such a strategic point is obvious. Make it so the tower switchs control once a day, and that basically whichever faction controls the tower receives a nice Ahn'Qiraj buff for the evening. It should be an relatively easy to add (paste in a Plaguelands tower, edit values), and it would compliment raiding well by encouraging 30-60 minutes of war while raids are preparing and organizing. The victor faction would then be decided, and said faction would be meaningfully rewarded for the evening. Simple, purposeful, and fitting.
I spent 4 hours fighting over the towers on patch night and I really enjoyed it. It's nice to finally see some impact on the world and being able to control portions of it. Now granted, I do have a sweet tooth for that niche; when we took the first Keep in DAOC on Merlin, I spent all night near it with immersed visions of grandeur even though I could of been hunting somewhere much more effecient. The Plagueland towers may likely be the same for a while.
However, the newness will wear off, and I fear the towers as a whole may be even less purposeful than Silithyst. The problem is that the design of their control gameplay and their reward purpose conflict. The towers are designed to be fought over constantly because control switchs relatively quickly, yet their reward purpose is designed around seige-and-leave because of their PvE nature. That's a major flaw.
Aside from the north tower duration buff which I forsee always generating a hot bed of activity as long as the Plaguelands ever see traffic (partially because of the buff, partially because of the location), the rest of the towers only offer an active buff based on control. The active buff is designed for PvE, so you'd go conquer the towers, get the active buff for each tower you actively control, and then put the buff to use in PvE. But that's nigh impossible in an active Plaguelands environment because the moment you leave any of the towers to go PvE, the towers can be taken over by even just 1 person in just a matter of minutes, thus removing your active buff.
That's why the control gameplay and the reward purpose conflict. The former has a relatively fast rate of tower capturing which suits constant PvP presence, yet the buff is designed around sporatic or even one-time PvP presence. If one of the following suggestions were implemented, the confliction would be remedied.
1. Change the control scheme so a group or raid can take over all 4 towers and then benefit for a few hours in a Scourge dungeon or involved with other Scourge content without threat of losing said benefit. 2. Add a duration buff to each tower so that each has a seige-and-leave incentive like the north tower. 3. Change the active buff so it suits and promotes the constant PvP activity required to hold onto any measure of tower control.
Lastly, a side effect of the relatively fast rate of tower capturing is that it makes playing tag possible. On patch night, our Horde raid outnumbered the Alliance in the Plaguelands, so we were able to control most of the towers. Yet despite that, we rarely ever actually ran into them during one prolonged period. They basically just went to whichever tower we weren't at and captured it quickly.This was made possible by how fast the towers switch control. We outnumbered them, but we lacked the numbers to defend 4 towers simultaneously against their raid, so they always had a [tower] opening to go to. And by the time we took over their last tower and got to their current one, they were gone to the next.
A simple fix for this would be to slow down the rate of tower capture (even more) the deeper your control is into the control meter. If a fully-controlled tower (rather than just barely-controlled) took even longer to capture than it does now, it would basically slow down the sort of tag-esque gameplay I mentioned. You could still barely-control towers if you wanted to play tag or roam around at a rapid rate, but if you wanted to make a measured push for all 4 towers (without a zerg that drastically overpowers the otherside), you could then invest the time to fully take control of a tower and know that an Alliance wouldn't capture it while you were gone re-taking one of their barely-controlled towers.
That's where the solution must lay. They can take a fully-controlled tower in the time it can take you to go get a barely-controlled tower and get back to the fully-controlled tower. Scaling the capture rate as I described would help fix the issue, as would some potential solutions to the control and reward confliction described in the 2nd to 5th paragraphs of this section.
It's in a pretty sorry state right now. What was once a battle of momentum and a reverse tug-of-war between both ends is now just a race to kill the enemy General. It encourages both sides to ignore each other. Defense is even frowned upon now, which speaks volumes for just how purposeful and prideless its state has become.
What needs to be done first is that the graveyards must be linked. Think of them as a supply chain. You cannot take the graveyard ahead of you unless you control all the graveyards behind you. That would guarantee the reverse tug-of-war gameplay that Alterac Valley was designed to be and originally was. Anything other than this is an abomination.
Now understand, everything else would have to be updated and re-balanced. You'd need to reavulate the resurection system in ensure that a res-zerg could not consistently halt momentum toward a graveyard (much like it did last summer). The rate of Honor and Reputation gain, amidst the PvP environment of The Burning Crusade, Level 70s, and the Arena system, would need to be tailored to be fit effeciently into the scope of things as well. There's always a solution when it comes to the fine tuning of values, you just need to find the happy medium. Such tweaking should never hinder core game design.
Alterac Valley is worth the investment. It's not an old dungeon that need be forgotten; with scaled rewards it would easily find a new fit into the environment of The Burning Crusade.
Silithus could benefit from a simple raid-rewarding tower at the Scarab Gate a la the Plaguelands. Silithyst itself isn't a bad feature; it's just a matter of timing and its minor presence that causes the discontent toward it.
The Eastern Plaguelands towers have conflicting control gameplay and reward purpose. One of the two should be changed or expanded in order to better compliment the other.
Alterac Valley is a former shadow of itself, but it's worth investing resources into restoring the reverse tug-of-war gameplay it originally was. It can find new life in The Burning Cruade.
High Overlord Saurfang still wants his old pissed-off-scowl face back.
